Idle musings by a once again bookseller, always bibliophile, current copyeditor, proofreader, and cabin housekeeper/maintenance guy. Complete with ramblings about biblical studies, the ancient Near East, bicycling, gardening, or anything else I am reading (or experiencing). All live from the North Shore of Lake Superior

Monday, July 15, 2013

Summer? in Grand Marais

It's been a while since I gave a status update, so let's give it a shot...

It's been a cold spring/summer here so far, averaging about 10°-15°F below normal. That, in turn, affected the number of people vacationing in May/June. That actually was a blessing, because we weren't really ready when we opened in May. It took us about 2 weeks more to get things where they needed to be—just in time for Memorial Day!

It's been fun watching the weather here. The lake and the ridge behind us have a strong effect on it. There has been a lot of fog—or low-lying clouds if you look up the ridge : ) Not infrequently, there will be fog rolling in from the lake, obscuring anything beyond the harbor and then, if you turn around and look up the ridge, the fog will be rolling down the hill. A neat effect that is difficult to describe.

Needless to say, we've been busy. The cabins have kept us hopping and then I've been trying to get a garden going. Dave and Geneva had a garden, but I've expanded it a good bit (no surprise there, eh?). I'm experimenting with different vegetables, especially short-season tomatoes. We'll see how it goes. So far, we've been eating radishes, broccoli raab, Romaine lettuce, mizuna, arugula, and spinach from the garden. I planted some short-season flint corn (for cornmeal); it wasn't knee high by the Fourth of July, but it has really taken off in the last week.

As far as other things go, one of the proofreading jobs that I had was pulled in-house to save money. But, God has given me other jobs—almost too many sometimes! I'm finishing up a job for Baker right now, doing the on-line flashcards for the Cook and Holmstedt Hebrew Grammar. That's been fun and frustrating at the same time. The web site they are using doesn't know what to do with close parentheses when you mix Hebrew and English... I've also proofed a couple of books for Augsburg/Fortress.

God has pulled me—kicking and screaming—into doing some copyediting. I've always sworn I wouldn't do any—after working with some of the best in the industry at Eisenbrauns, I've been intimidated to try. But God made it abundantly obvious that I was supposed to do it. So, I'm copyediting three dissertations right now; they are all defending in August! That's quite a tight schedule, to put it mildly!

My spare time (right!) has been filled with reading copyediting books...which explains the dearth of posts here. Enough for now...